I’ve been hovering between 250-260 pounds (~113-117 kilos) for the past four years — basically, since the start of law school. It hasn’t stopped me from doing things like hiking all over Ireland and Scotland.

I am not here for fat-shaming or to fat-shame. I actually embrace being plus-sized. I am not going into this adventure to actively lose weight. But there are some hard realities about thru-hiking that I know: even if I go into this with an extra 25 pounds/11 kilos of “cushion” on my body, I will rapidly lose it. I will need to eat 4000+ calories per day to maintain weight and those first few weeks on the trail will be hard on my body until I get my “trail stomach.” I fully expect that walking 12-20 miles (20-32 km) per day will do intense things to my body — and not just restore my legs to their high school shape (I played four leg sports, so).

Training for this will also be hard on my body. I also anticipate that it will be hugely rewarding — my lungs will get back into better shape, despite my asthma; I’ll trim down close to 75 pounds (34 kilos) before I’ll be ready to leave; my knees will be more stable; and I’ll get to conquer a huge task: walking ~1800 miles/3000 kilometers along the length of New Zealand.

I made the decision two weeks ago and have consistently hit 10k steps each day since then (you can see that first Monday that I made my decision that evening, after I’d hit my 5k goal for the day).

. ‘

Before then, my daily goal was 5k, which I had consistently hit for two straight months.

Thru-hiking Te Araroa is hugely motivating, to say the least.